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%must be run from master directory
\input mla8.tex
%%Prompt:
% In his book, Democracy in America, French historian Alexis de Tocqueville claims the American Dream is the charm of anticipated success. In 1931, historian James Adams first defined the American Dream as "that dream of a land that should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement."
% Trace the idea of the American Dream through Vance's book. How do the above ideas fit with the poeple in Hillbilly Elegy? What determines success or failure? Who is responsible and ultimately pays the price for failure to attain the dream? Is the American Dream attainable?
%%Preamble
\def\ifcited{\expandafter\iftrue \def\ifcited{\iffalse}}
\def\vancite#1{%cites J.D. Vance in particular
\cite{\ifcited \newcite \nameinline \fi
\name{Vance}{Vance, J.D.}%
\contain{Hillbilly Elegy}%
\publish{Harper Press}%
\pubdate{Jun 2016}%
\pagenum{#1}%
}%
}
%%Document
\numberfirstpage
\name{Holden} \last{Rohrer}
\prof{Jones}
\clas{AP Lang}
\header
\title{{\it Hillbilly Elegy} on the American Dream}
The American Dream is nebulous. One thing {\it is} clear, however: it is a dream, an aspiration. It could comprise a personal hope, a hope for society, or both. If there were a personal aspiration, the American Dream is about prosperity, so it would probably be to prosper. However, almost everyone is motivated by that, so that couldn't be a part of the American dream. The hope for society would be similar: for everyone to prosper. But this wouldn't work because if everyone prospers, no one prospers. Therefore, there must be a discriminating factor. According to James Adams, this factor is ability or achievement: ``[The American Dream is] that dream of a land that should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement.'' This is upward mobility at its most meritocratic, which is only possible in theory. J.D. Vance wrote his memoir, {\it Hillbilly Elegy}, about those failings of the meritocracy. Meritocratic approaches fail for both the very poor and the very rich, as Vance observed firsthand.
%determine and strengthen thesis
Vance starts by describing Appalachian culture in broad strokes. They honor their families to a fault. ``I doubt that any deed would make me as proud as a successful feud'' \vancite{24}.
They have a close-knit community unwelcoming to outsiders (even when those outsiders come from their own communities). They act like their problems don't exist. And they often ``[leave] a trail of neglected children, cheated wives, or both'' \vancite{17}. Their flaws
have a bigger effect than just unhappiness. It propagates, importantly, into a lack of economic successes for those children.
%bruh is that a summary
There's a sense that those people deserve to not succeed, especially understandable through Vance and Mamaw's observations of ``welfare queens.'' %clarify
Mamaw has ``an almost religious faith in hard work and the American Dream,'' but she is deeply ambivalent if welfare queens deserve to fail without a gover\kern0.05pt\relax nment support safety net \vancite{35} \vancite{141}. People who work hard and make the right decisions unambiguously deserve to succeed and prosper---to be upwardly mobile. The hillbilly communities, however, suggest this is unrealistic: hard workers without the emotional, social, educational, and financial backing to succeed don't. Even if they were innately able to make every right choice, social support structures are lacking if they exist, and defensive behavior lear\kern0.05pt\relax ned from childhood trauma prevents most from sustaining relationships long enough to develop personal support structures. This points to the unhappy truth that the American Dream, where society is now, is unattainable for certain people.
In the broken families and abusive relationships, kids don't lear\kern0.05pt\relax n how to make their own relationships work. Vance had this same problem in his marriage---he couldn't deal with his emotions healthily by talking to his partner. Instead, he ``tried to get away, but Usha wouldn't let [him]. [He] tried to break everything off multiple times, but she told [him] that was stupid unless [he] didn't care about her'' \vancite{225}. This is because poor kids in Rust Belt cities ``are constantly ready to fight or flee, because there is constant exposure to the bear [an environmental stressor], whether that bear is an alcoholic dad or an unhinged mom'' \vancite{228}. If he weren't married to an ``outsider,'' he wouldn't have had the necessary loving support to lear\kern0.05pt\relax n how to break those habits, and he would have continued the cycle of poverty (emotional and financial) because he couldn't deal with stress. %this is poorly written
Vance, however, didn't continue the cycle of poverty. This was due to his partner, but it's also partially a result of Mamaw's saving grace: her stable home, her consistent guidance, hers and his Mom's encouragement of learning. Factors which allowed Vance to get into college were even more complex; he had to make up for missing social knowledge by joining the military, which worked but wouldn't have happened with every Middletonian student in the same situation. For getting to any high-paying professional job, he would have need to learned networking is necessary (which took him a while even at Yale) and then applied it. ``The problem is, virtually everyone who plays by those rules fails. $\ldots$ Successful people are playing an entirely different game $\ldots$ They network'' \vancite{214}. The presence of any of these factors are uncommon in any hillbilly family, but the presence of all of these factors---what was necessary to lift Vance out of poverty---is extremely rare. Someone born into that class already has every single one of those boxes ticked.
Vance supports the meritocracy to a degree. He believes that hard work is valuable and should be rewarded, but he also recognises that no one starts on a level playing field. He is a firm believer in the American Dream, the right to opportunity, but he knows that to provide it is a long process which for at least one group, the Irish--Scots, can only occur from inter\kern0.05pt\relax nal change of values which are extraordinarily stagnant. %add citation from original (is this thesis?)
\biblio
\bye
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